Healthcare Workers' Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Regarding Personal Protective Equipment for the Prevention of COVID-19

Hossain, Mohammad Ali; Rashid, Md Utba Bin; Khan, Md Abdullah Saeed; Sayeed, Sabrina; Kader, Md Abdul; Hawlader, Mohammad Delwer Hossain

PURPOSE: Adequate knowledge, positive attitude, and proper practice of personal protective equipment by healthcare workers are necessary to get protection from COVID-19 infection. But this area is yet to be explored. Hence, we aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) regarding personal protective equipment (PPE) among healthcare workers, along with a survey of the possible determinants. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: For this cross-sectional study, online and offline surveys were conducted among a sample of 393 healthcare workers from five different districts of Bangladesh. A validated self-administered questionnaire comprising five sections (socio-demography, work-related information, knowledge, attitude, and practice) was used for data collection. Multivariate stepwise forward logistic regression was applied to find significant factors associated with good attitude, and practice using SPSS version 25. RESULTS: The average age of the 393 participants was 28.9±5.2 years with a male-female ratio of one. Of them, 99.5% (n=391) had good knowledge, 88.8% (n=349) had positive attitude and 51.7% (n=203) had good practice regarding PPE. Results revealed that being a physician and living at home were significantly associated with a positive attitude. While being a non-physician, having lower education, working in private hospitals, and using office transport were associated with good practice regarding PPE. CONCLUSION: The findings demonstrated that the healthcare workers had an overall good knowledge and a positive attitude but a poor practice regarding PPE. This study also highlighted the factors influencing KAP towards PPE that must be addressed in future education, awareness, and counseling programs.